An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.

No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.

Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”